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Nox
Background The Underdark The Underdark is a strange place. It guards its secrets well and makes life for those that call it home difficult. Most of the Underdark remains unexplored and unknown. It is labyrinthine and only the largest and most well-traveled caverns are properly mapped. Side passages and shortcuts are often considered state secrets, and knowledge of such tunnels can make or break a merchant’s house. Scattered across the endless tunnels are ruins and dungeons, pieces of the broken world that came before, making the environment even more dangerous and confusing. Despite all this, many races that live there thrive, carving out great metropolises and building their own nations below the feet of the rest of the world. These races have adapted to the world they live in, their culture and biology bending to support a life in perpetual darkness surrounded on all sides by predators and other bizarre challenges. The Deep Dragon Halves are one such race. Tucked away in the Underdark, they are an odd sight on the surface but are common enough in the deeps. The Deep Halves see themselves as the keepers of the secret history of the world, which is probably an exaggeration. They are a race of scholars, but have a very specific view of history, placing themselves as most honored among Dragon Halves. They see themselves as the only Dragon Halves to be truly accepted by their true dragon counterparts, this is most likely because Deep dragons found them useful tools and pawns and frequently manipulate Deep Dragon Half enclaves to their own ends. While research and the pursuit of knowledge are greatly encouraged, deviation from the “official” history is frowned upon in Deep half society. Having collected lore through their race’s history, they are known as information brokers throughout the Underdark; building their enclaves in key locations they are able to control travel to a certain extent, and by controlling travel they can not only gather information but control the flow of that information. War in the Underdark is a strange affair, with very little open “ground” armies must march through caves and tunnels to campaign. Caves and tunnels are often easily fortified to be able to withstand even the largest of armies. These locations are where Deep Halves like to build their cities, preferable such ones with ruins nearby that they can claim are historically significant. Because of this, war in the Underdark tends to lean more to spycraft and sabotage, but when open war breaks out many a general has had to pay a Deep Dragon half enclave to pass or for the location of a secret path around. Enter Nox Nox was born to a fairly typical settlement of Deep Halves, and like most of his kind had a thirst for knowledge. Early on Nox found a particular aptitude for exploration and spelunking into old ruins to recover important pieces of history. However, some of what he found did not line up with what was taught by the elders of his enclave. As he grew older he clashed more and more with the teachers and elders of his home on what the accurate history of his people and the world was. As time progressed and Nox’ aptitude as a scholar, historian, and archaeologist progressed he spent more and more time away from his enclave going deeper into the Underdark discovering even more exotic ruins. In a particularly remote ruin buried in a collapsing structure is where Nox found the relic. Well, a piece of a relic. To be honest, it’s more like a glyph on a rock, but it was strange. The stone didn’t match the surrounding structures or the cave, the symbols on it were not pictographic or of any languages known to Nox, and if it was art it was not in a style that Nox was familiar with. It was incredibly magical but identify and comprehend languages revealed nothing. And when he slept with the relic nearby he had strange dreams. Nox couldn't return to his enclave for help if this was truly a piece of a relic and involved with the fracture than any research would be bogged down by the doctrine his people held regarding their own creation and place in the world. Outside of his own race, the Underdark was short on scholars so he would need to travel to the surface for more information. ''